How's the diving in Antigua?

[divetraveler]

By the way thanks for taking so much time to write your review and answering our questions...really appreciate it.

 

[sodaking663rd]

thanks for your reply...very detailed! our concerns from your review is going to be the cleanliness of the room including some needed water pressure and the working hot tubs. i feel that for what sandals charges this stuff should be taken care of and never be an issue. i'm glad to hear about the construction not being an issue and like you we will be doing the el cheapo room...no upgrade however. thanks again!

 

[wldflwrs03]

Very welcome. We did have to show our log books. Hubby had lost his, but started another with recent dives w/in a week of arrival. I took a copy of my computer logs as a 'just in case'. They mainly wanted to see how long it was since your last dive. The construction should almost be done if you are going in December. I think the new 'village' opens in January so hopefully they will have had time to work on the 'older' section. Besides the $$ for the vacation itself, the lack of other things (to include unique soveniers) saved us a bundle--lol Have fun!!!

 

[joshr502]

I agree with my wife(wldflwrs03) on everything she has posted about Sandals. Here's my thoughts on the diving. The first day we arrived, we went down to the dive hut and tried to sign up for diving. It was about 4pm or so and the diving was filled up. I was upset about that because that was one less day of diving we would have. Especially since the included diving was the main reason we chose Sandals. So, sign up early and for as many days as you can in advance. They have two trips a day, each trip being a one tank dive. The morning dive is usually the deeper dive. They don't have snacks on the boat, like most dive boats do, so make sure you eat breakfast before you go out! Although, it will be a rushed breakfast because of there is only about 45 minutes from the time the breakfast opens untill your show time at the dive hut. If you plan on going out for both dives of the day, it is especially important that you eat breakfast. The first trip leaves about 8am and retyrns around 1130am. The second trip leaves about 1145am and returns around 2pm. So, once again, with no snacks on board, you're going to get real hungry. Although, 2 days a week, they do a 2 tank trip. There are snacks on board for your surface interval on those trips. About the dives themselves. They are ok. On a scale of 0-10, 10 being the best, I would say they are a 6. Most of my diving has been in Cancun/Cozumel and the Red Sea, so maybe I was expecting better for the Carribean. We did go on one dive that I would give an 8 though. I don't think we even went to any of the sites that they state they go to on the Sandals website though. The water temp was great! around 86F even at 70ft. Although, you should still wear at least a dive skin for protection from the jellyfish (there are hundreds of them at several of the sites). I was stung twice on my head/neck. They do keep vinnegar on the boat, so you're good if you do get stung. The marine life was kinda sparce at most times. We did see a stingray, a shark, an eel and a lobster though. That was on our first dive. After that, there were just sparatic small fish. You could definatly see the hurricaine damage to the reef on the northern side of the island (where Sandals dives). There was some bleaced coral and chunks taken out of the brain coral. We did do one dive a little further to the south and it was much better. The visability was great on most dives. We did go on one dive where the visibility was less than 10ft though. Most of the dives we did were around 40ft and we did one deeper one to a depth of 70ft. I would suggest takeing a trip out with one of the other dive services on the island that dives the southern side. I have heard that the diving around Nelsons Dockyard is much better. One other bit of info. If you do not like diving with resort course students, do not go on the second dive of the day. That is the dive that they take the resort course students out on. We went on a couple of dives with a student from hell! She was all over the place and worked the divemaster pretty good. Speaking of the divemasters, they are great! Very helpful and friendly. All in all, we will not be going back to Antugua or any other Sandals. The diving was ok, but it is the Carribean, so it still beats a quarry or lake!

 

[Jake]

Here are my trip reports from Sandals Antigua if you want my two cents:

http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=139155
and
http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=139156

 

[melissassm]

I'm heading to Antigua in January, and was going to book my dives with Jolly Dive. Their website says that all the sites they take you to are to the south, on the Cades Reef, so hopefully that will be good.

Either way, it'll be my first ocen dive, so I'm sure I'll think it's the greatest thing yet. I figured it's better to start with the "mediocre", instead of rushing straight to Bonaire, the Caymans, or Belize!

 

[MaraGirl]

While Jolly may dive the south, the better diving is in the south-east of the island where English and Falmouth Harbour are located, home of Nelsons Dockyard. The dive operators that dive the south-east are:
AntiguaScuba www.antiguascuba.com
Aquanaut Divers email: aquanaut@candw.ag
UltraMarine email:ultramarine@actol.net